If you want to break out of the windows mold, tiling windows managers are where its at. You've already explored that route with i3, and there are other alternatives, but they all have a bit of a learning curve unfortunately. hyprland might be worth a try. I've only dabbled but I did remember it being a bit more beginner friendly than i3. But be prepared to be confused, read a bunch of forum posts and edit config files for a bit.

try nixos / guix

If you want to break out of this and find something new without too much of a learning curve you could try Illogical Impulse

It's hyprland, modded and more avvessible.

You don't need to change distro in order to change desktop environment: just install gnome/kde/whatever if you want to give different ones a spin (you don't need to uninstall your current desktop environment either - you can have multiple ones and choose which one to use when you login)

I'd find a distro to settle on, not a desktop environment. Most distros have most desktop environments. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Debian all ship the major desktop environments. I would simply choose the one that best fits your needs.

Want to run on the newest software available? Fedora

Want long-term support for the install and am okay with using slightly older versions of software? Debian

Don't care about the software part, and the most ready install out of the box? Go for Ubuntu or Linux Mint

In terms of desktop software. KDE is the most like Windows, but still far better in my opinion. Gnome is its thing, more similar to a mac, but still not quite the same.

You can try Niri - it is a tiling, scrollable wm, a lot easier to use than i3, I'd say half way between i3 and a full de.

I mean at this point you've pretty much hit most things with the exception of a WM but you've stated that i3 was too much for you so...there isn't really anything else. you've done xfce, cinnamon, gnome, and kde. that's it. Other than say LabWC but if i3 was too much than that's not going to be much better. And I'm assuming when you say "too much" you mean editing the configuration?

you could do something like Niri or Hyprland with Quickshell/DankMaterialShell where the config is all done essentially via the DMS/GUI setup for it.

Honestly the last one would be COSMIC DE. but if you've used GNOME already you might not like it. COSMIC does give you the option to toggle between stacking and tiling so that'll be different than what you've already used but if you liked the customization of the previous DE's you've used you're going to be disappointed with COSMIC as the customization for it right now is very limited.

If you want something that looks different you wanna find a different desktop environment(DE), most of them are avalible on most distros. I'd pick a distro then a DE that they offer. You could try these DEs you haven't already tested:

• Cosmic, think tilling + gnome-like interface. It softens the learning curve for a tilling WM a lot if you've got other options. Fedora has a spin with this in if you liked fedora.
• Budgie but can be quite similar to others
• MXLinux with Fluxbox could be an interesting choice, its usually used on low end devices but its pretty snappy on anything else. Or Fluxbox on any other distro but MX is the only thing I can think of with it as an install option.
• If you don't mind something older, you could look at CDE or NsCDE, although I can't remember how involved the install process is.

Other than that, your options for non-tranditional desktop environments are probably just other tilling ones(i3, hyprland, ect) or scrolling(like niri). Or customising one of the others, KDE can be very flexible for that. You've gone through a lot of the main ones.

As for distros, there's a lot, most will have the same set of desktop environments though. So, the same look and feel one you get past the install and package management etc...

If you don't mind going outside linux land, haiku can be fun. Completely different OS though...

terminal only

If you want extreme flexibility, use Arch Linux, since it makes it trivial to swap out which window manager you're using. It sounds like you're familiar with Linux at this point, so you probably have the requisite knowledge to give Arch a spin.

Niri is supposed to be a pretty interesting WM if you're looking for something new. I'd be interested to hear why i3 was too much, since I found it to be pretty smooth to pick up.

Carchyos or Endeavour with kde maybe.

Fedora has an i3 flavor, you could try that - or just install whatever WM you want to check out on your current setup. You can usually select your WM on the login screen once it's installed.

If you want to go out there, tiling window managers are neat. I want to try hyprland at some point as well. 

I'd say PopOS with the relatively new Cosmic Desktop could be something interesting for you to try of you don't really want to go into configurations that much. It has floating and tiling windows that you can switch easily.

GNOME and vanilla Xfce are fine, but you can also try ElementaryOS as a distro.

You should try cosmic.

I’m currently running CachyOS, where I installed Hyprland and ML4W dot files (basically a well refined set of config files for Hyprland) alongside KDE Plasma. ML4W (MyLinux4Work) has great YouTube videos detailing their installation process.

Hyprland, like i3, is pretty amazing to use once you get used to it, but sometimes it can break, so having the option of rock solid KDE right at the login screen is a nice bit of insurance.

CachyOS is based on Arch, so you’ll need to get cozy with updating and installing software, both from the repository and flatpak, via the terminal. If you’re not already comfortable with that, it’s a great opportunity to learn.

Try out a floating wm. I don’t know any on Wayland at the moment, but when I didn’t want the full DE experience back in 2008 but tiling was still too daunting, I installed fluxbox and used it for years. It’s simple yet unique and very lightweight.